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- Moments in a life of a Northern planktonologist -

Month: October 2011

Finland’s environmental administration asks people to inform the authorities about their observations on alien species. In the Baltic Sea, that is. With more information on the species the authorities can plan the steps needed to be taken, if there are any. To make it as easy as possible, there is even a form on the net one can fill in in case of an alien observation. As far as I could find out, the form was only in Finnish. There are quite a few Swedish speaking citizens living on the coast, with a large knowlegde of the sea and it's life. I hope they find their way to the form too. Further ...

Visited Mrs. Terttu Finni in Helsinki yesterday. We had a fine day looking at the samples from the coastal waters of the brackish Baltic Sea with her the microscope. Went through the most common species and dicussed almost 50 taxa. I kind of like Chaetoceros-species. The first step towards counting Baltic Sea phytoplankton is taken.

Last weeks Thursday and Friday we had the annual autumn meeting of the Finnish algologists. This time in Heureka, the Finnish Science Center in Vantaa, near Helsinki. Most of the time of the 15 or so algologists gathered went on checking the blue-greens on the national algae list: the names, volumes, taxonomy. A couple of totally new taxa was dealed with as well. We also discussed the exact meaning of the word coenobia. I learned that checking the algae list here in Finland is very much done by the algae counters themselves, on a voluntary basis. This can be a very productive way of working. L...

Visited the university library in Turku and borrowed this book "Cyanophyta" from T.V. Desikachary, 1959. Still busy with the Cyanos after the Determination Course in Czech Republic... It was very interesting to get some perspective in the study of Cyanos. Was reading the chapter Heterocysts and I realized that back in 1959 it was not yet clear what the function of heterocysts was. Different functions were suggested: store houses for food material, reproductive bodies, producing of gas vacuoles, secreting a growth stimulating substance.The most surprising thing was that the germination of heter...